Igor Sechin set his sights on Yamal LNG project

Construction of the super-shipyard of SSC "Zvezda" in the city of Bolshoy Kamen Primorsky Krai faced another unpleasant fact: this time the timing of commissioning its first stage is postponed for a year or two.

At the core of the idea of ​​building a powerful shipyard in the Far East of the Russian Federation, capable of creating ships and equipment for offshore work (including tankers, as well as ice-class vessels) is sound grain. Now such ships and drilling platforms of the Russian Federation are bought in China and South Korea. And as we recall, the development of the raw resources of the Arctic and the Far East (without fools) is the top economic idea of ​​the country. If you soberly look at all public-private activities in the Russian Federation, it is reduced to the extraction of hydrocarbons and other raw materials, their primary processing and logistics. For this purpose, transport corridors are being expanded, new terminals are being built, as well as liquefied gas plants (for example, the Yamal LNG project, in which the Russian Federation has invested more than $ 15 billion, after which it was handed over to private hands by Novatek, Chinese and French investors from CNPC and Total with huge tax benefits) and so on.

And if the economy is raw, then gas carriers and tankers are vital for it. The logic is simple and clear. In 2009, the construction of a new super-shipyard was started on the basis of the Far East Zvezda plant, already existing in the Large Stone of Primorsky Krai, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine was the Russian partner (represented by the United Shipbuilding Corporation). However, in 2012, the Koreans refused to cooperate, rightly deciding that it was senseless to transfer their technologies to potential customers.The construction was stalled for a year or so, after which a good Eurasian tradition was replaced by a stake owned joint venture "Modern shipbuilding technology" with the participation of Rosneft, Gazprombank and Rosneftegaz.The plans were extensive: SC "Zvezda" was supposed to be put into operation in 2018-2019 (first), and by 2030 to build on This shipyard up to 500 different vessels from auxiliary (for example, supply vessels and seismic surveys) to ice-class tankers.

However, then time and external conditions interfered with the plans of the inhabitants of the Kremlin. It turned out that the Russian economy does not have 10-12 years of quiet construction of a super-shipyard. In 2014, a major geopolitical victory was won by the resident of the Russian Federation in the Crimea, an endless victory in Syria began in 2015, plus a serious drop in oil prices followed the sharp budget crisis. Finally, since 2015, the United States has imposed sanctions on Western companies to help develop new offshore hydrocarbon fields in the Russian Federation. Their technology at the brilliant masters of multi-passages was not (why pay Russian engineers for R & D?), And so all this in one fell swoop put the concept of oil and gas production in the Arctic under a big question. Or, more simply, zeroed all the baggage of previous actions of hydrocarbon managers.

Accordingly, SSC "Star" before the eyes began to lose its aura. While this project (the joy of Chinese machine builders fully equipped with their equipment, including super-cranes) is still lobbied by Igor Sechin and his Rosneft, but his prospects are far from the same. For example, plans to build ships have already been cut three times (up to 178 vessels), and the terms of their manufacture are shifted on a chronological scale for 5 years until 2035. Of course, the cost of the shipyard also increased to 200 billion rubles, but it can not be said that these are some huge funds (this is 6 times less than the Russian Federation wants to spend at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Turkey, for example). Much more difficult is the answer to the question, who will become the customer of the fleet of new ships? Rosneft itself does not carry hydrocarbons in the Arctic and, in view of the sanctions, it is not known whether there will be any.

Therefore, Igor Sechin entered into a hardware battle: the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, in agreement with Rosneft, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, prepared a draft law for the government ... prohibiting the use of foreign-built vessels on the Northern Sea Route from 2019! Under the impact of Sechin, the Novatek company Leonid Mikhelson and its already existing Yamal LNG project are getting: gas carriers in South Korea have been ordered. While "Novatek" desperately resists, motivating all the fact that the SSK "Star" in general has not yet been built, and it is economically pointless to order from it:

"Within the framework of negotiations between NOVATEK and the shipyard Zvezda (being built in the Far East), the gas company was offered to build an LNG tanker 80% more expensive than in South Korea," and this without quality assurance and delivery on time. "

But it is unlikely she will be able to resist the pressure of Rosneft for a long time: after all, if the enemy does not give up, then it is destroyed. From the point of view of Sechin, it is possible to oblige Novatek to buy virtual gas carriers from the unfinished shipyard of Igor Sechin, and even better - to squeeze Comrade Mikhelson and his clan in Yamal LNG project, having entered there himself. Thus, Rosneft can try to elegantly circumvent US sanctions and join the long-awaited production of hydrocarbons on the Arctic shelf in a company of proven French comrades from Total and Chinese friends from CNPC. Will in this case in general completed SSK "Star" - a rhetorical question. Maybe it is not needed now and now as an industrial facility.